Educational Visits to Compton Verney

The Learning Team at Compton Verney tell us about the gallery programmes and workshops available for school groups.

CREATIVITY is KEY...

Often described as a 'hidden gem,' Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park is a magical treasure trove for your students to plunder.

Let us support you to unlock your student's creative potential by participating in engaging, artistic activities. Learning about or through the arts can not only develop artistic skills, vocabulary and understanding but can ignite passions and curiosity, generate new ideas, make sense of the world around us and challenge our perceptions.

What do we offer?

All our gallery programmes combine exploration of our permanent collections or temporary exhibitions; our Learning Team use an enquiry based approach and promote active participation throughout the visit. We invite students to discuss, develop and share their responses to the artwork they see. Each programme includes and a hands-on practical workshop inspired by what they have seen. As well as linking to Art and Design aims in the National Curriculum, our programmes are designed to make cross curricular links to History, D&T, PSED, English and Maths

Programme Highlights

Capture the Landscape
How do artists compose landscape drawings and paintings? From the off, you experience the stunning 120 acres surrounding Compton Verney Art Gallery. Stepping into a living landscape, carefully constructed by 'Capability ' Brown, you are immediately inspired. The journey continues to our Naples Collection where you will witness erupting volcanoes and see dangerous shipwrecks, finally you will experience the hustle and bustle of a 19th Century city scene on this landscape exploration.

Through discussions, games and observations you will think about how an artist composes, uses colour and techniques, captures drama or the essence of the everyday to help you create your own mixed media Mysterious Landscape.

Take on the role of a designer
Become the designer in our Pattern, Shape, Design workshop. Discover where designers Enid Marx and Mark Hearld get their ideas from and how those ideas translate and evolve into fabrics, book covers, wallpapers and many everyday designs.

From patterns in the gallery's architecture to the quirky shapes in our popular Folk Art collection, you'll find some surprising and extraordinary objects including, handcrafted shop signs, children's toys, massive quilts and naive paintings - plenty to get your creative ideas flowing.

Inspired by your journey through the galleries, you'll learn about printmaking and how to screen print your designs onto fabric, creating a team banner masterpiece to showcase back at school.

Learning from objects: uncovering the Shang Dynasty
A huge amount of what we know about the Shang Dynasty of Ancient China comes from the discovery of bronze objects and oracle bones found in tombs. These objects are the keys to unlocking your imagination and this ancient world.

Using the bronzes as a focus for investigating, you'll learn about life and religion 3500 years ago. You'll come face to face with huge golden statues of kings, ritual bronze vessels, weapons and a horse sculpture with dragon like head.

You will have the opportunity to hold a real-life ancient bronze, feel the weight, trace the taotie designs, read the ancient inscriptions and admire the craftmanship.

You'll sculpt your own ritual bronze vessel out of clay, maybe you'll choose to create a Ding vessel - a symbol of power and hierarchy.

As one of the largest Ancient Chinese bronze collections in Europe, there really is nowhere else that offers this unique experience and active engagement for schools.

- Mysterious Landscapes
Linked to KS1 and KS2 Art and Design Curriculum

- Pattern, Shape, Design
Linked to KS2 and KS3 Art and Design, Design Technology and KS2 Mathematics curriculum

- Rituals and Bronzes: The Shang Dynasty of Ancient China
Linked to KS2 History and Art and Design curriculum